The communication channel between a transmitter and a receiver is susceptible to noise, interference, and multipath. Multiple antennas may be used at the receiving destination to enhance the received signal. A receiver chain for signals received at each antenna may be necessary. Therefore, multiple receiver chains may be necessary to exploit the signals received at multiple receive antennas.
The transmitter may transmit a message multiple times to the receiver to improve the probability of the message being received without error. Processing a received channel may be accomplished using receiver diversity by combining the received signals. When the signals are combined at the receiver, the effective carrier to noise ratio of the channel may be increased to a level above the minimum level required for processing the channel. As a result, the transmitter may transmit the message fewer number of times without affecting the message error rate. The reduction in the number of times a message is transmitted allows the transmitter to transmit a higher number of different messages or reduce the interference level for other receivers. As such, use of receiver diversity at the mobile station improves the reliability and increases the capacity of the communication system.
To this end as well as others, there is a need for determining the number of times a message is transmitted on various channels in a communication system.